Post by Traditional Music Forum on Apr 15, 2021 11:42:25 GMT
A weekly two minute catch-up for members from the
TMF Director's desk
These are some of the things that have caught my attention this week.
Interesting panel earlier this week convened by piper and academic, Simon McKerrell of Newcastle University, on 'Unlocking live events in the Highlands'. A lot of chat about what audiences will want and expect from both live events and digital presentations, and the blend of the two that is being increasingly talked about. Given the possible implications for crew, IT and connectivity one panelist asked 'How do we go blended without going bankrupt?' Given that, it was good to hear Eden Court CEO, James Mackenzie-Blackman saying 'Let's not leap to digital.'
A lot of the same themes came up at the Festivals Forum meeting a few weeks back. Following that we've put a proposal to Creative Scotland for some work on a digital strategy for Scotland's folk festivals.
This year is the 70th anniversary of The School of Scottish Studies. To mark the anniversary the School is inviting people to write a short blog post which features a response to any ‘object’ from the archive collections. (‘Object’ includes sound, image, film, manuscript, books etc.) The response can take any form written, drawn, photographed, sung, danced. Ideas and responses to scottish.studies.archives@ed.ac.uk
It was a real treat to get into the Storytelling Centre earlier this week for the recording of the music for the launch of our Scotland Online Directory of Musicians project. Three dimensional musicians on a stage, playing to an audience (well Tina and me, Sandy the videographer, and the sound crew). Great work from Maeve Mackinnon, Luc McNally, Ali Levack, Rachel Hair, Ron Jappy, David Foley, Jack Smedley and Jenn Butterworth. The launch is on May 7 as part of Tradfest. It's free online but you need to book a ticket here. There are already a lot of names on the directory, but there will also be a sign-up form to make sure that everyone who wants to be on it can be.
One of the tunes Rachel and Ron played, the Belfast Hornpipe, developed into this week's earworm. I couldn't find a version by them, but this one from The Dubliners hits the spot.
Looking through the RSCDS's magazine, Scottish Country Dancer, I came across a comment about people learning to play for dancing by sitting at the back of the band off-mike. Does anyone still do that?
The Cross Party Group on Music, for which the TMF is the secretariat, sent a letter recently to the Cabinet Secretary, Fiona Hyslop about the road map to post-Covid recovery. In particular it was asking for parity between amateur music-making indoors and indoor contact sports. The reply was fairly bland, but one thing that did emerge was that indoor group activity will be allowed in Levels 0 and 1. No word yet on the performing arts guidance, but we're trying to find out more on that.
The BPI, the record industry's trade group, has just published research showing that 28% of people in Britain increased their music listening in 2020. Half of the people surveyed said that they used music to lift their spirits. As BPI Chief Exec, Geoff Taylor says, 'The transformational power of music to improve lives has rarely been more pronounced.' Other figures to be published shortly by the organisation show that the UK consumed 139 billion audio streams, and bought sixteen million CDs, nearly five million vinyl LPs, and over 150,000 cassettes (!) in 2020. Tangible ways of playing music are not quite dead yet.
A letter in the current Living Tradition points out a common mishearing of Mary Brooksbank's famous 'Jute Mill Song'. All those of you singing 'Them that work the hardest are the least provided', cease immediately. When you think about it the line as it stands doesn't make a lot of sense. In that form it should be 'are the least provided for', which, of course, doesn't scan. What Mary Brooksbank wrote and sang is 'them that work the hardest are wi [with] least provided'. Much better.
Sad to hear of the passing of Dave Evans, a wonderful guitarist of the fingerpicking posse which was a big feature of the folk scene in the 1970s, inspired by the likes of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. This gives a flavour.
All the best
DF
David Francis is Director of the Traditional Music Forum
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